Sorry for the issue you are having. We have had several people have problems and we are looking into it. In the mean time try using other ports on your computer if you can. Some people have had problems with one port on their laptop but not another.

I'm having the same problem with the USBi programming on Windows 10 64-bit (showing "Compiled. Comms Failed" after several seconds of "Active Dowloaded" in SigmaStudio) with several hardware (freeDSP, Sure / Wondom DSP JAB3, tested all USB ports). Programming works fine on a Win 8.1 32-bit system with the same setup.

I am guessing you are using I2C. In that case since you saw "Active Downloaded" I think you did download the program. then if you have any meters enabled or Writeback cells set to "continuous read", then once the program starts running it is running into a communications problem. The "Compiled Comms" message only reports that there was no ACK on a message. SigmaStudio will not try to write or read after it compiles and loads unless there is a readback or an enabled meter setup.

What is interesting is that we never supported Windows 8 so it is interesting that it worked on that machine.

Look at the attached App Note about how to setup SigmaStudio and the USBi for SPI. It is really easy. The evaluation board is not an ADI eval board so I have no idea how easy it will be to adapt the eval board for SPI? I have a feeling it will be difficult The reason is the EEPROM. It will be an I2C EEPROM and so you will not be able to use the I2C EEPROM and you may have to remove it so that it will not try to drive the bus. It should not but there is a slight chance it might. You would have to inadvertently send the proper start condition and then the address and then it will send an ACK. Not likely to happen.

There will be some pull-ups for the I2C SDA and SCK lines that have to be removed. Then the slave select and MISO pins will have to be connected.